


Pack's Place

by Kalira



Category: Naruto
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Cuddling & Snuggling, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Literal Sleeping Together, Nightmares, Podfic Available, Poisoning, Recovery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22141669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalira/pseuds/Kalira
Summary: The poison-induced delirium and fever may have broken, but Kakashi's grasp on reality is still a little shaky after days of being lost in his worst memories mixed with new nightmares. His pup is determined he won't be alone while he fights his way out of the horrifying morass it has left behind.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi
Comments: 16
Kudos: 258
Collections: Dog Sensei & Sparklepuppy, Trope Bingo Round 14, Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	Pack's Place

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't have a plan for this story, it simply sprang to mind on Sunday and I wrote it between housework, exhausted nap, and cooking that day. Because I will always have more dog-sensei and sparklepuppy feels, it seems. . .
> 
> Written for the hurt/comfort square on my [Trope Bingo board](https://kalira.dreamwidth.org/24550.html).
> 
> Now with a podfic version, read by me, available [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26405470)!

Kakashi shuddered, scrubbing a hand across his face. Fevers always made things a bit shaky, his memories blending with nightmares even more than they normally did; with a fever induced by a toxin that had scrambled his brain more than a little it had been . . . a very unpleasant week. Not only for himself, though Tsunade had assured him everyone he had attacked while he was trapped between nightmares and reality would recover fully.

Kakashi was glad of it, though it made him feel a bit sick to think about too much - both the images, the sensations that had prompted him to lash out and the thought of those people he had hurt. He was glad he had been too ill and too affected by the blurring of his reality to strike too effectively.

He was once more secure in reality and had been for more than a day, meaning he was no longer a possible threat to anyone who walked by at the wrong time. Once she was sure of it, Tsunade had allowed him to go home, and he was more comfortable here, but sleep was still proving . . . hazardous. Kakashi turned onto his side, facing the wall, staring at the slight striations in the paint in the moonlight before he closed his eye.

He tensed as he heard a tiny sound behind him, too tired and worn to conceal his reaction entirely. He opened his eye and saw a shadow, someone flitting through the moonlight.

It was the scent, not the shape of the shadow - which was moving too quickly to identify so easily - that gave away his intruder, and Kakashi turned slowly just as Sakura climbed up onto the bed. “Pup, what- You shouldn’t. . .” His heart clenched and he couldn’t quite go on.

Sakura’s face had featured in his blurred nightmare-memories too often.

Sakura’s face wet with tears and white with shock as she choked on her own blood, lightning blooming in her chest, in Kakashi’s hand. Sakura’s face pale and ashen, her body crushed and bleeding because Kakashi had been too slow to stop a doton that had swept over her like an avalanche. Sakura’s face sharp and angry as she told him he was dangerous and cold and not worth the risk of remaining near. Sakura’s face. . .

Kakashi couldn’t quite stifle his ragged, hitching breaths as those not-memories returned to him, painted vividly in his mind.

“Kakashi-sensei. . .” Sakura touched his face gently and Kakashi realised she had a handkerchief only when she dabbed away his tears with it. “I know you won’t tell me anything,” she said, and Kakashi’s stomach knotted sickeningly at the very thought of sharing with her the things that had played out in his mind - in his _life_ , “and that’s okay. I understand. I didn’t think you should be alone, though. I know it’s all right for you to have people around you now, so here I am.”

Tsunade had told him Sakura had tried to see him when he was still affected by the toxin, remaining at the hospital determinedly for a time even after she had explained to his student why Kakashi was unsafe to be around.

Kakashi had to swallow a few times before he could speak. “You-” He paused, shaking his head, and a thought occurred to him. “Your _mother_.”

“Mom knows where I am, and I’m not going anywhere.” Sakura said firmly.

“How did you even get in?” Kakashi asked, shifting up a little bit and glancing at the window she had come through.

“Oh please,” Sakura snorted, frowning a little, “Kakashi-sensei you taught me that trap months ago.”

Kakashi vaguely remembered that, now that she mentioned it. He rotated the traps he used on his apartment regularly, and had now taught Sakura several of them. How to set them and, as he always did after she learned that, how to take them apart or simply bypass them.

“You-”

“You need me, Kakashi-sensei, so I’m not leaving.” Sakura said stubbornly. Her expression suddenly softened as she crawled a little higher up the bed, leaning against the wall at the head. “You said we’re pack, right?” she asked quietly.

Kakashi’s breath caught and his eyes stung at the question, at the idea of it, but he nodded. Sakura caught his hand in both of her far smaller ones and squeezed hard. “We’re pack, so I should be here for you when you need me. Just like you’re there when I need you, Kakashi-sensei.”

Kakashi closed his eye, breathing slowly. “Right.” he said, voice thick and scratchy. He couldn’t deny it, that _was_ a large part of what it meant. “You’re just a pup, though, Sakura-chan. My problems aren’t-”

“I can’t fight things off for you very well - not so well as you can handle it yourself when you have to,” Sakura admitted as Kakashi looked at her again, patting his knuckles, “but I can _be here_. And you’re too tired and too sick to out-argue me tonight, Kakashi-sensei.” she added with a stubborn little pout. “Just let yourself rest. I’m real, and I’m here.”

Kakashi did argue with her a little longer, but Sakura refused to be budged, and if he were to be honest about it, Kakashi could not have said he truly wanted her to go. Kakashi had very little pack - for years there had been none outside his ninken - and he couldn’t deny that the security of her presence helped even if she was only a pup.

Kakashi slowly let himself lie down fully once more, absently checking on the weaponry concealed within reach - those hidden in the jounin blues from his uniform, which he was still wearing, those concealed along the wall, and those tucked away in the bed itself.

“Sleep, Kakashi-sensei.” Sakura said softly, knuckles brushing his cheek as she shifted beside his shoulder, her hip nudging his arm for a moment.

Kakashi had been fighting fever and illness and his own memories and mind for days, and with his mind now calmer, senses assuring him of safety, he could no longer fight sleep very well. He hoped desperately for no nightmares, or at least none but those he had grown used to years ago.

Kakashi woke shaking from a nightmare of his beloved sensei, his best friend, and his bright little pup all turning on him harshly to find his pup whining with distress but nudged up quite close to him. Still half trapped in sleep, he pressed his nose to her arm as he scented her anxiously, reassuring himself it was really Sakura.

Warm and cosy, Sakura snuggled into his side, and Kakashi clung to her thoughtlessly, burying his face in her hair as the clinging remnants of sleep drew him under again.

When the sun came up and Kakashi did at last wake properly, Sakura was still there in his arms, her head tucked under his chin and one of her own arms around his waist. She was pressed close to Kakashi, curled up tightly on herself, probably trying to escape the slight chill in the air, since she was still on top of the blankets.

Kakashi lay there for a while, half his field of vision filled by pink, and realised he felt more settled than he had since he’d been hit with that toxin. Not only had reality reasserted itself, so had a reminder that his reality as it was now wasn’t all bad.

Kakashi hugged Sakura tighter without thinking, and rubbed her back when she wriggled and groaned. “Ohayou, pup.”

Sakura sighed, snuggling into him and rubbing her face on his shoulder. “Ohayou.” she said sleepily, then yawned against his shoulder, her teeth closing on it through his shirt before she jerked back. Kakashi laughed, but released her when she rolled away and bounced to her feet with _far_ too much energy for just having woken.

Sakura stretched, back arching, then turned to face him as she smoothed out her dress and untwisted one side of her shorts beneath.

Kakashi pulled himself upright with a smothered groan, rolling his shoulders and arching his back. Sakura smiled tentatively at him and he returned it with as much enthusiasm as he currently had to offer. Sakura’s own smile steadied immediately.

“Are you feeling better, Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura asked, fingers curling into the fabric of her dress.

“Yes.” Kakashi said honestly. Sakura eyed him with concern. “Reality and dreams and memories were already straightening out again, but . . . I do feel better this morning.”

Sakura relaxed a little, her smile soft and happy.

“You . . . helped. Being here.” Kakashi told her quietly, honest. “Does your mother really know where you are?” he asked as he slid to the side of the bed, his voice still rough, rubbing a hand over his temple and scratching through his hair.

“Mom knows you’ve been sick, and it was really bad, but you’re safe to be around now, and I was coming to see you.” Sakura said promptly, with her best little _good girl_ smile.

Kakashi looked at her and could clearly pick out the lack of a location in the information offered, suspecting that Haruno-san thought he was still in the hospital. Visiting the hospital in the middle of the night might be a bit strange for civilians, though it was far less so for ninja, who kept all manner of odd hours, but it was more acceptable than his fourteen year old student climbing in his apartment window in the middle of the night.

“At least,” Kakashi said dryly, “you’re very good at creative use of honesty.”

Sakura clasped her hands to her chest. “Kakashi-sensei! I would never be anything less than scrupulously truthful with my mother!” she said, batting her lashes.

Kakashi laughed, and she dropped her hands, smiling at him again.

“I couldn’t tell her why it was so very important I come,” Sakura said more seriously, padding back over to the bed and sitting beside him, cosying up against his side and resting her cheek on his shoulder, “I _wouldn’t_ , not ever. But I knew you needed someone here.” she said quietly.

Kakashi curled an arm around her and propped his chin on top of her head. She hadn’t grown much taller in the two and a half years she had been his little pink shadow, and still fit there nicely. She smelled comfortingly like flowers and warmth and a tinge of sweat; his pup, his pack.

“Thank you, pup.” Kakashi said softly, squeezing her lightly. “It isn’t your job to take care of me,” he reminded gently, voice low, “but thank you.”

Sakura huffed and turned enough to wrap her arms around him. “If we’re pack then it _is_.” she said stubbornly, because she’d learned _pack_ startlingly well and quickly - as well as she learned everything she was offered or taught, Kakashi thought fondly. “And you’re welcome. I’ll be here the next time you need me, too, Kakashi-sensei, and don’t think I won’t!” she added, hugging him harder, squashing his ribs a little.

Kakashi stroked her hair and then cupped one hand at the back of her head, holding her close for a moment. “Come on, pup,” he said, releasing her and leaning back a little, “I’ll make you breakfast.” He rose and rolled his neck before heading towards the kitchen, glancing back at her.

“Yay!” Sakura grinned, hopping up to trot along at his heels, making him smile.


End file.
